Mercyhurst archaeology students help with Meadowcroft recovery

This is an undated contributed photo of James Adovasio, director of the Mercyhurst University Archaeological Institute in Erie. Adovasio and his team plan to go to the Meadowcroft Rockshelter in Washington County on July 31 to excavate it after a July 19 storm damaged the national historic landmark. CONTRIBUTED/ERIE TIMES-NEWS

Mercyhurst University senior Jamie Badams had been planning to spend his summer on vacation with his family in Montreal.

Instead, he spent 10 to 12 hours a day underground, chipping away at ancient soil in an effort to restore an important archaeological site near Pittsburgh.

Badams was among a handful of students who joined James Adovasio, Mercyhurst University provost and director of the Mercyhurst Archaeological Institute, at Meadowcroft Rockshelter in Washington County working on an area of the site that was damaged by water.

"It's definitely one of the hardest sites I'll ever work on," said Badams, an archaeology major. "So it's kind of nice to have that out of the way."

Meadowcroft became an important archaeology site in 1973 when Adovasio discovered evidence that humans occupied it as long as 16,000 years ago, longer than humans were previously believed to live in North America.

Adovasio said he hadn't done a large-scale project at the site since the 1990s, but rain water seeping in because of tree roots gave him and his students the chance to rediscover it.

On July 19, stormwaters found their way into the rockshelter, causing damage to several layers of ancient soils that Adovasio compared to pouring water on the side of a cake.

Early excavations revealed several layers -- referred to as strata -- giving information on different areas at the site. The water caused many of those incredibly small layers to bleed into one another.

So students, including Badams, used tools, including razor blades, to start chipping away at the smudged layers at the site, once again revealing the geological timeline of Meadowcroft and claiming some materials for study.

The work ended this month with a stratigraphic mapping.

"We never expected to uncover any dramatic new truths about the site," Adovasio said. "But we recovered new bone and plant material, and it let us refine and enhance our understanding."

Adovasio said Meadowcroft is a difficult site to work on for anyone, and even more so for students.

"If you can work there, you can work anywhere," he said.

Badams said he was glad to have the opportunity.

"We talk about a lot of complicated ideas in class, and we got to see them in practice," he said.